The Wild West

A man lay dead in the street. Jane regarded the familiar tableau of western independence. Looking around, her eyes narrowed against the glare of the afternoon sun; her jaw set against recrimination. The normally busy street was empty. Shadows lurked in alleys, and behind storefront windows. Vapor curled from the tip of her weapon. Steam, that magical industrial marvel, which gave birth to the iron horse, the mechanical loom, and ushered in equal rights for all, had metered out a slice of Rocky Mountain justice, and Jane had set it loose.

Young Tommy Edison’s invention of electrical power from a submerged metal rod was remarkable. Mr. Colt soon harnessed this wonder and introduced its blue plasma bolt to the world. Despite the East Coast’s romanticized reporting to the contrary, the steam piston revolver was not winning the west. The west was being won with water.

Spring water was the new gold. Cold power required an exotic deep-earth mineral cocktail to perform its magic, and land which held these water rights were the grubstake that fueled futures.

When Jane’s father staked his claim to the Wyoming highland, it was a geological oddity. People thought him crazy for homesteading land that you couldn’t plant, or raise cattle on. Of course, all that changed when cold energy swept the land. She legally inherited the claim after her father’s death. It’s was hers by destiny, and by right. Nathaniel Langford challenged her claim on Yellowstone ranch, and now the known vigilante, and carpetbagger lay dead in the street. He had unwisely infringed upon those rights and tested Jane’s grit. An action which she justly answered with a bolt of western, steam-powered, ozone-infused freedom.